In early January, the company reported a weak Christmas season, with sales at its retail stores falling 11%. Sales at its Nook unit fell 12.6% to just $300 million.

Earlier this month, the company warned of rising losses and disappointing sales for its Nook unit in the past year, results of which are due Thursday.

How Barnes & Noble ships millions of gifts

Barnes and Noble and other traditional book retailers have struggled with competition from Amazon.com(AMZN), which has its own Kindle e-book. Borders filed for bankruptcy two years ago and went out of business in July 2011.